


fall into me and then

by gealbhan



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Critical Role Femslash Week, Crushes, F/F, First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, Pen Pals, Pining, disaster lesbian cali, rated for like 2 swears
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-17
Updated: 2019-01-17
Packaged: 2019-10-09 19:06:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17412527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gealbhan/pseuds/gealbhan
Summary: Calianna has never kissed anyone, but shewantsto.





	fall into me and then

**Author's Note:**

> written for day 2 of [critical role femslash week](https://critrolefemslash.tumblr.com/post/180178925470/critical-role-femslash-week-will-be-held-wednesday): first kiss! (i have 3 other fics planned for this week, but only one other is finished & it's also finals week so we'll see how it goes!)
> 
> so apparently i have a problem with starting fics, telling myself they're going to be short, and then making them Actually A Lot Longer Than Intended. but this one was fun & i've been meaning to write calianna/jester bc they're adorable so i regret nothing
> 
> title from "gimmie love" by crj. enjoy!

Calianna has never kissed anyone.

This, perhaps, isn’t so much of a surprise when one considers her upbringing—no one in the Cult had exactly ever been kissing material, all far older than her and like family. In all honesty, it’s a wonder Calianna even knows what a kiss _is_.

At least, that’s what she tells herself. It makes her feel better.

She isn’t embarrassed about her lack of experience, per se, just frustrated by it, because she _wants_ to kiss people. She realizes soon after she leaves Port Damali that women take up the majority of her kiss-related thoughts. She’s not going to rule anything out yet, but the thought of kissing a nonspecific woman makes her stomach fill with butterflies, a sensation she’d thought was made up for the few romance novels she’d read. On the other hand, the thought of kissing a man leaves her with a sour taste in her mouth.

She hadn’t considered romance much at all before, but once she starts traveling, she tries to open her mind. It’s a whole new world. She also tries not to interact with people, too paranoid about anyone being secretly associated with the Cult of the Caustic heart, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t ever _look_. People watching becomes a hobby of hers fast, and there are a lot of attractive women for her to watch in a non-creepy way, okay?

More often than not, Calianna is kept awake by heart-fluttering thoughts of romance and affection beyond the familial touches and compliments she’s familiar with. In the privacy of inn rooms, she lets herself blush and squeal into her pillow after thoughts—even dreams every now and then—of holding the hand of an imaginary, faceless woman. (She’s never held anyone’s hand, either, at least not in a romantic way. She’s a little embarrassed about this one.)

But she doesn’t meet anyone she trusts enough to act these thoughts out with or even to confide in. She keeps moving without making any meaningful connections. The imaginary woman with whom she shares her romantic firsts remains imaginary and faceless.

And then she meets Jester.

Jester catches Calianna’s attention from the get-go—no one can ignore the blue skin and horns, but even if she hadn’t had those (not that Calianna would want her to _not_ have them), Calianna thinks she would have noticed her. She’s adorable and beautiful and all the other words Calianna has only ever been on the receiving end of before.

Calianna doesn’t think she’s a particularly poetic person, but she could write hundreds of poems about Jester’s smile alone. She can’t tell if her lips’ coloration—a purple-tinted blue—is natural or from lipstick, but it’s a stunning shade no matter what. When Jester is smiling with her mouth closed, her fangs still peek out over her lower lip. And when her mouth is open—

Well. Calianna had never thought a fine set of pointy teeth, which could do damage if sunk into flesh, could be cute before. She’s already rid herself of this preconceived notion.

It’s not like Calianna is in _love_ with Jester—not yet, anyway. Even someone as naive as she knows that love takes time, and she and Jester have known each other for mere hours. But there’s potential, and Calianna recognizes it. How the air crackles when she and Jester meet eyes. How the brush of Jester’s arm against hers as they walk side-by-side (or as Calianna walks and Jester bounces) makes her heart race. How Jester smiles at her and seems to really see her, not just her dragon scales or anything the Cult had seen in her.

Calianna won’t rule any future attractions out, but if she’s mentally reshaping the imaginary woman of her dreams to be a chubby blue-skinned tiefling with sharp teeth and ribbons on her horns, then no one has to know.

And then, even after everything that goes down, Jester still takes her hands and asks her to be pen pals. Jester’s hands are cold, but how quickly Calianna’s own skin warms up (perhaps due to her draconic blood, perhaps Jester’s proximity) makes up for that. Calianna is agreeing without even stopping to think about it.

They part ways, but they keep in touch. Calianna replaces her nights of wanting and wishing and wallowing with nights of writing and, well, still wanting and wishing.

At first, she signs her letters with, _Sincerely, Calianna_. It’s formal but nice. Jester always draws a heart after her name, whether it’s her real one or a fake one to throw off anyone who might be snooping around. Calianna always worries when she receives those ones, but before long, Jester will contact her again and assuage her fears.

One night, sleep-deprived and giddy over a day of attending a temple of Bahamut for the first time and feeling happy there, Calianna finishes a drafted letter she’d already had and writes, _Love, Calianna_. She seals the envelope without a second thought and leaves it on the nightstand while she sleeps.

In the morning, it comes back to her, and she might startle someone outside with how long she screams into her pillow for.

Then she gets up and begins pacing her room. She’s already sealed the envelope and everything, and they’re so hard to reseal, and she doesn’t want to rewrite the entire letter, because it had been almost three pages (double-sided!) long. Besides, she tells herself, Jester is _full_ of love. Calianna is almost jealous of how easily and openly she loves; it’s one of the things she admires most about Jester. So she wouldn’t mind the slip-up, right?

Calianna remembers that she’d only secured a room up to noon today—judging from the light seeping into her room, it’s getting closer and closer to that deadline. She snatches the letter and gathers up the rest of her things and near-runs downstairs to check out.

Jester’s next letter takes a while to arrive. By the time Calianna gets her hands on it, she’s been in the town she’d told Jester she’d stay in next for three days. The moment an innkeeper says, “Oh, your name is Calianna? I’ve got something for you,” Calianna’s heart stops.

Right at the counter, she tears the letter open with a kind of frantic, possessive energy she hasn’t used in a long time. She scans the letter, but no mention is made of her unorthodox signature, and Calianna’s shoulders start to lower with relief as she gets nearer and nearer to the end, and—

Her breath catches in her throat.

 _Love, Jester,_ says the bottom of the letter in Jester’s wide, curly handwriting. There’s an imprint of smudged red lipstick on the edge. It’s as clear a message as any.

Despite herself, Calianna giggles. She apologizes to the poor innkeeper who’d handed it over, because he looks like he’s about to faint, then skips up to her room with Jester’s letter pressed over her heart.

From then on, she signs all of her letters with, _Love, Calianna._

+

Calianna walks into an inn.

That sounds like the set-up to a bad joke, one Jester would include in a letter next to a doodle of herself giggling, but it’s reality; she’s a traveler, and she’s scoped out all the inns in town before settling on this one. It’s surprisingly bigger on the inside than it had looked, but still cozy and bright and something Jester would love. As she looks around, starting to loosen her cloak, Calianna makes a mental note to include all the details in her next letter—ooh, or maybe a sketch? She’s nowhere near as good as good an artist as Jester, but she could at least try—

And then she turns, and there Jester is.

Jester isn’t the first one Calianna sees, but once she spots Beau’s familiar undercut and the back of her vest slung over her chair, it’s a natural progression of the eyes to the head of the table. Jester is laughing and drinking from a glass of milk. Calianna finds herself frozen in the doorway, staring with her mouth agape.

The second Jester’s eyes meet hers, she knows, because Jester’s eyes widen and she sets her milk down and she stands up with a flourish. Oh no. Calianna forgot how cute she was in person.

“Cali!” squeals Jester, launching herself across the room at Calianna, and—

Calianna’s face goes bright red as Jester, with a deceptive amount of physical strength (Calianna regrets being too distracted by Jester’s face and personality to not pay attention to her arms before), sweeps her off her feet and into her arms, then wetly kisses both her cheeks. Calianna hurries to wrap her arms around Jester’s neck to steady herself. She’s sure that, if she fainted, Jester would catch her and keep carrying her without an issue, but—well. Just in case.

Calianna hears a thumping sound, and her subconscious smile drops. She peers around at Jester’s tail, but it’s swinging in the air behind her, which means that _Calianna’s_ tail is thumping against the floor. Oh dear.

Off to the side, Caleb clears his throat, dragging Calianna from her many complicated thoughts. “It is good to see you,” he says, staring into his book with his jaw set and color in his cheeks. Calianna isn’t sure if it’s because of Jester’s display or how their last interactions had gone. Before she can ask, he answers—“I apologize for the last time we spoke. I acted poorly, and—”

“Oh, it’s in the past, Mr. Caleb!” Calianna smiles reassuringly, but he doesn’t seem to see it—if anything, his head bends further toward his book. It must be very interesting. “Jester told me all about how you and Beau made up and everything. I forgive you, though I didn’t really blame you in the first place.”

Caleb mumbles something Calianna can’t make out, but some of the tension in his shoulders unwinds. She smiles and, absent, pats Jester’s back.

Fjord coughs. “Well, it is awful good to see you, but, uh, Jester—would you mind putting her down so the rest of us can talk to her?”

Jester startles like she’s forgotten she’d picked Calianna up already. (Knowing Jester, it’s probable.) “Sure,” she says, but she doesn’t look too happy about it, and they walk back to the table with their arms brushing.

Beau flags down a waiter to get Calianna some food before she’s even sat down. Jester drags a chair over from an empty table nearby, setting it up beside hers, and Calianna takes it with a smile. She tries to insist that she can pay for her own meal, then, but Jester will have none of it.

“You’re our guest,” she says with a grin, tail wrapping around Calianna’s calf. “So we’re going to pay for you, right, guys?”

When the rest of the table doesn’t immediately reply, Jester shoots all of her friends a dirty look. The table chimes into a chorus of _yeah_ and _sure_ and _as long as you don’t eat, like, an entire steak, go nuts._

To that last one, she says, “I—no, I’m not really into meat, and I ate earlier, so—” She shrugs. “No entire steaks for me.”

Calianna blushes and toys with her hair while Jester shoves a menu in her face and rattles off all the items that she thinks are tasty or just sound good. (Calianna doesn’t point out the fact that every other food she notes is a sugary pastry of some kind.) After a few minutes, she decides to just order a salad and a small bowl of soup. Jester’s pout convinces her to tack an order of cinnamon rolls on.

“Just so you know,” says Jester, leaning into her, “I might eat all of those, but I’m paying for it, so it’s okay, right?”

Beau groans from the other end of the table. “Jeez, Jester, we need to get some non-sweet foods into you,” she says, and a murmur of laughter runs through the rest of the table as Jester sticks out her tongue.

And they talk, and they eat, and they laugh, and Calianna slowly but surely settles back into the group’s rhythm. Since Calianna last saw them, they seem to have become even closer—they’re comfortable in a seamless way they hadn’t quite been months ago, which makes her feel a little uncomfortable about butting in, but she relaxes before long. They share plenty of new stories about their travels, ones Calianna hasn’t heard from Jester and ones she has but doesn’t mind hearing again, over bottomless drinks. Jester does end up eating all but one of Calianna’s cinnamon rolls—she doesn’t mind. The absolute delight in Jester’s face is more than enough for Calianna.

Over a couple hours, though, the group files upstairs one-by-one; they’d already reserved a few rooms for themselves, they just hadn’t gotten there yet. Then it’s Calianna and Jester alone, with a few other patrons in the room at large. Calianna doesn’t realize the direness of the situation until Beau has already wrestled Caleb upstairs with a hissed, _Take the hint, dude_.

Jester leans forward with a—well, sultry look on her face. “So, Cali,” she says in a quieter tone than she’d spoken in all dinner, “how have you been?”

Calianna had thought she’d caught Jester giving the others significant looks every now and then, especially before one or two decided to call it quits for the night, but she’d chalked it up to her overactive imagination going wild upon seeing Jester again. Now she’s having second thoughts.

“Well, um,” she says, “like I told you all, I’ve been really good! I’ve been traveling, and—” she lowers her voice to a whisper “—the Cult hasn’t found me, so that’s really good! And I’ve been having a lot of fun seeing new places and meeting new people. How are you?” She hadn’t gotten a chance to ask earlier, bombarded by everyone else’s questions for her and brand new in-jokes.

“It’s been pretty good!” Jester’s tail tightens around Calianna’s calf, where, Calianna realizes with a jolt, it’s been this whole time. Is that getting uncomfortable for Jester? Calianna doesn’t know how tiefling tails work, only her own—she’ll have to ask sometime. “But I’m feeling better now that you’re here. I’ve really missed you, you know?”

“I’ve missed you too,” blurts Calianna. “I think I didn’t realize how much until now, because we’ve been talking, just not—you know, _talking._ ” In a bold move, she takes Jester’s hand and clasps it in her own, relishing the spike in her heartbeat and Jester’s ensuing beam. “The letters are so fun, but they’re—seeing you in person is so different, right?”

“Yeah, totally!” Jester squeezes her hand tight and then takes her other hand; it’s the draconic claw, which Calianna knows for a fact is scaly and rough to the touch, contrasting with Jester’s smooth skin. But Jester doesn’t so much as blink. _Thump, thump,_ goes Calianna’s traitorous tail. “Sending letters is so much fun, I agree, but I forgot how pretty your voice was. It’s really nice to hear it again.”

Calianna’s tail and heart both beat harder. “O-oh, really?”

Jester hums, and Calianna can’t think of anything to say in response, so she just wets her lips. The silence hangs between them for a beat too long. Flushing, Calianna gives a nervous laugh.

“Hey, um, I didn’t get to ask this during dinner, and it’s kind of awkward now, but, uh,” she says, hushed, letting go of one of Jester’s hand to scratch her neck. Jester tilts her head. “Do I have lipstick on my cheeks from, you know, earlier?”

“I’m not wearing lipstick right now, so no,” says Jester cheerfully, which answers that particular question—Calianna tries to look like she hasn’t been wondering. Then Jester’s eyes widen. “Oh, wait, balls. Was it okay that I did that?”

“Oh! Um, yes, it was—it was okay. It was great. I—it was really, totally okay.” Calianna bites her cheek, well aware that she’s rambling. She drops her gaze from Jester’s. “In fact, it was—I liked it a lot. And I, um, wouldn’t mind if you did it again. Or in, like, you know, other places?”

“Other places?” There’s the hint of a grin in Jester’s voice.

Oh boy. Calianna swallows. “I—I liked you picking me up too, and I really liked you kissing me, even if it wasn’t—I mean, a _real_ kiss, you know? And I realized a long time ago that I liked you a lot, as a person. Or as a tiefling? I’m, um, not sure. But anyway, I still like you a lot, and—well, if you kissed me again, I wouldn’t mind at all. I would like that a lot, actually. Um.” She lowers her head, flame erupting across her cheeks.

She forces herself to be silent again. Better quit while she’s ahead. Beside her, Jester is silent too, but her grip increases marginally on Calianna’s clawed hand.

Then, with the hand that Calianna had dropped, Jester reaches up to cup Calianna’s chin and tilt her face up. Jester’s eyes are wide and earnest, and Calianna relaxes at the soft quirk of Jester’s smile, at the hint of her fangs creeping out. It’s a gentle expression—Calianna stops herself just short of thinking of it as _loving_. Maybe Jester will let her down easy, touched by Calianna’s unrequited feelings; Calianna doesn’t mind as long as she gets to look at that smile.

“I like you a lot too,” says Jester, smile widening, and Calianna sucks in a sharp breath. “And I really do love being pen pals, so if you aren’t going to keep traveling the same way as us, I wanna keep doing that—” Calianna feels herself nod “—but I would love being more than that, too.” Jester grins with all her teeth. The heat in Calianna’s face rushes down to fill out her neck, and her stomach flops. Oh, she’s in trouble. “And I would also love to kiss you a bunch, and all that kinda stuff.”

“Ah—well, that’s, um, really convenient—”

Calianna clasps a hand over her mouth and sighs. She leans forward, letting go of Jester’s hand so she can instead hold onto her bicep—it’s partially (okay, mostly) so she can feel the muscle beneath, and otherwise so she can curl her claws into something that’s not the table or Jester’s hand. She scoots her chair closer. Jester sits still as Calianna continues to tilt her head toward hers, like she’s approaching a wounded and demure gazelle instead of the blue-skinned whirlwind in front of her.

Jester bats her eyelashes. “How long is it going to take for you to kiss me, Cali?” she teases, reaching up to curl a hand onto the back of Calianna’s neck. Her palm is a cool, calming weight, subtly pushing Calianna closer at a quicker pace than she’d been setting.

Calianna hesitates. “I just wanted to make sure you really were okay with it, you know,” she says, nerves overtaking her again as she leans an inch or two back, “and I didn’t want to rush into things—”

“Wait wait wait,” says Jester, eyes widening again. She stops pushing. “Is this your first kiss?”

“Um. Well.”

“Aw, it is!” Jester rubs Calianna’s neck, which probably shouldn’t be as soothing a motion as it is—regardless, Calianna hums and leans back into her cold hand. “Don’t worry,” says Jester, leaning closer. “I haven’t kissed a lot of people, either, and it’s my first kiss with _you_ , so we can both be nervous about it, okay? And if you don’t want to do it—”

“I do,” blurts Calianna. She really, _really_ does. Somehow, the knowledge that Jester is almost as new to this as she is makes Calianna’s stiffness evaporate.

 _Almost_ being the operative word. She takes a deep breath, hopes her breath isn’t as bad as her brain wants to convince her it is, and closes her eyes. She leans in halfway, and Jester leans in the rest of the way, and then they’re kissing.

It’s not quite as breathtaking or monumental as Calianna had hoped, and she’ll admit that that’s a little disappointing, but it’s warm and soft and sweet, and Jester tastes like all the cinnamon rolls she’d ingested tonight. Calianna squeezes Jester’s shoulder. Jester’s hand goes slack on her neck, and her tail unwinds from Calianna’s leg and comes instead to wrap clumsily around her waist. She doesn’t pull Calianna in, just rests it there. There are no tiny explosions in Calianna’s ears or any popping feet, and—

That’s okay, she decides. It’s her and Jester. That’s good enough.

Within ten seconds, though, the other people here have noticed, and wolf-whistles and applause break out all around them. Calianna snaps away from Jester, embarrassed and bright red, and Jester pulls her biggest pout.

“Hey, dickheads!” she yells. “Shut up and let me make out with this really cute girl, please!”

The whistles are replaced with laughter. Calianna buries her head in her hands. Jester bumps their knees together, and Calianna peeks at her through her fingers.

“Do you want to come up to my room?” says Jester, pushing close enough that their foreheads are grazing but their horns aren’t bumping. “We’d have some privacy there, away from these ding-dongs.”

“Yes, please,” says Calianna. And then her eyes widen, because she’s picked up some more… _detailed_ romance novels in her travels and read them out of pure boredom. She leans closer to whisper, “But I’m not really ready for—I mean, can we just talk?” She keeps herself from adding _and cuddle, maybe_ by nothing short of a miracle. She guesses that can be part of their talk.

Realization dawns in Jester’s face. “Oh, yes, of course! It’s not like we can really get up to any funny business with Beau and Nott in the room, anyway.”

Calianna’s flush deepens. “Yeah, I—well. Um. Can we go now?”

Jester sticks her tongue out as they pass by the table of the group who’d been the loudest of the wolf-whistlers, and Calianna trips over her own feet. She should’ve noticed it before, but she hadn’t, and now she’s kicking herself (almost literally), because—

Jester has a forked tongue. And it only adds to her cuteness.

It seems Calianna still has some things to learn, after all.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! if you have time to spare, i appreciate all comments & kudos <333
> 
> [twitter](http://twitter.com/birdmarrow) / [tumblr](http://dndbutch.tumblr.com)


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